


the beginning of forever

by lastgoldsun



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Fix-It, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), basically it's very soft because that's what they deserve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 05:41:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18804874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lastgoldsun/pseuds/lastgoldsun
Summary: 'I thought I'd be happy back there but...'He doesn't explain where 'back there' is because somehow, he must know that Bucky knows.'But...'Steve sighs. 'I don't think I'm happy anywhere.'





	the beginning of forever

In those faded days, he never was one to disappear. He looks back upon his own life like others do on sun-bleached photographs, wondering where that boy has gone. The one with the bright eyes and the mischievous smile. Sometimes, he'll hear an old song and find himself in the middle of a dance floor, watching ghosts twirl around him to the sound of a syncopated beat and wondering how he was ever at the centre of it all. 

Now, when the countdown ends he turns before anyone else has a chance to react. He walks away with his hands balled in the pockets of his jacket, curled tight and hidden away to stop him reaching for what is now gone. He's seen too much slip through his fingers to try and hold on anymore. When Sam stops shouting at Bruce for a moment and calls after him he doesn't turn back. He keeps walking away. He knows it's impossible to outrun heartache but it doesn't hurt to try.

He makes it about a mile and a half before his legs turn to lead and he has to lean against a tree for support. The trunk creaks as he falls back against it too hard, a harsh reminder that he's still impossibly strong even in his weakest moments. It feels wrong. Like his body doesn't match his soul, which has shrunk away to a quivering shell of a being that curls itself into the corner of the room, always wanting to be smaller until it takes up no space at all.

He stares out over the lake, watching the gentle ripples on the water and wondering how anything can be so calm in a world that never seems to stop going to shit. Last week, things were starting to get better. He was finally starting to make space for himself in a body that hadn't been his for more than half a century. It wasn't perfect. There were days when it still felt haunted and nights where he wanted to peel back his own skin to escape it. But he was slowly, cautiously, starting to feel at home again. 

Then the world ended. And a week ago is five years ago and it feels like someone has broken in and upturned all the furniture, because once again the world has moved on while he wasn't watching.

And Steve...

He pinches the bridge of his nose.

Over the past few years, or rather the last years he remembers, their time together has consisted of stolen moments. An hour here, a night there, a short phone call now and then. Finding time is like catching snowflakes - the moment you realise you've caught one, it's already faded away. 

It's all over now though. Their time is up. This is it. 

The end of the line.

As often as they'd said it, he'd never expected it to arrive.

Steve didn't tell him he wasn't coming back, but he knew. He could tell from the tightness of his arms around him and the way his breath caught slightly as he pulled away. Loving someone is a lot like learning a new language. One that is wordless, only heard in the hush of an exhale and read in lines in the skin. He thinks he knew that Steve wasn't coming back before he knew it himself.  

He supposes it's only right. They don't belong here. Either of them. Steve leaving just means that he's slotting himself back into a place where he fits.

And Bucky? His edges have been broken, leaving harsh angles that don't fit anywhere anymore. 

He bites his tongue as his eyes start to prickle. He's not going to cry. He won't let himself. This is a good thing. Steve is getting his happy ending. He was never happy here. Bucky has seen it in how sad he looks when he thinks no one is watching.

Let him go. Let him have his quiet life and his house and wife and kids and a porch swing to watch the sunset from. Let him have a normal job and time to draw and time to read and time for everything else he hasn't had time for in a lifetime. Let him have love. Let him have all the love in the world because even that doesn't come close to what he deserves.

More than anything, he deserves more than Bucky.

As soon as this thought crosses his mind, the final strength goes from his legs and he drops into the dirt, knees pulled up to his chest, face hidden behind his unruly hair. When he swallows, his throat tastes like the after-burn of a whiskey chaser and he wonders for a moment if he's going to throw up, but then remembers that it's impossible to spill what is already empty and that he's only had three full meals in the past week. On bad days, he forgets to treat his body like a body and not a rifle waiting to be discharged. Since waking up facedown on the leaves in the same forest he fell in, only five years later, there have only been bad days.

He's too caught up in his own breathing and the roar of his blood in his ears to hear the footsteps approaching, so when a hand falls onto his shoulder, muscle memory taking over immediately, forcing him through the steps of a dance that he can't seem to forget. Before his brain has a moment to catch up, the assailant is on the ground, a knee on his chest, arms pinned above his head, blues eyes wide in confusion.  

'It's me, Buck. It's okay.'

'...Steve?'

Bucky backs up, falling back onto the dirt again, all his agility dissipating as the moment of fear passes. He blinks. Once, twice, three times, expecting the man in front of him to flash out of view at any given moment, just like he had only a short while ago, disappearing back to a past that would welcome him home with a warm smile. But he doesn't, he stays, knelt a few feet away, solid as the ground beneath them. He looks almost exactly the same as he did when he left, only dressed in grey slacks and a light button-down shirt instead of his uniform. Maybe his hair is slightly shorter too, but Bucky isn't sure because he's too busy staring at those eyes. The ones that, only moments ago, he had been so sure that he'd never see again outside of photos and under the murky waters of his dreams. It seems impossible to be looking into them again. But what does impossible mean, really? When both of them have been on this earth for more than 100 years and have been buried and dug up again so many times between them that it's hard to keep count. What is impossible in a universe where a handful of brightly coloured stones can vanish trillions of beings in a moment, and in another moment bring them back again as if nothing happened, reassembled from dust long since lost on the breeze. 

Isn't everything impossible until it happens?

'Bucky,' Steve's voice is gentle like he's trying to calm a wild horse. Arms out, palms up. The universal gesture for you are safe now. 'It's me. I'm here. It's okay.'

'You're here,' Bucky echoes, his voice pulling itself from his mouth before he can think of anything more meaningful to say.

Steve moves closer, shuffling forward awkwardly on his knees. He stops only inches from closing the distance, leaving space for the questions and the silence and the hurt. The feelings that never seem to change, regardless of how much time passes. 

'I'm here.'  

Bucky tries not to hear that as a promise.

'Why?' 

Steve falters. For the first time since he appeared, he breaks eye contact, looking down at his hands which are gripping his knees. His face tightens. This is when Bucky senses the pain. That which is always there but carefully kept tucked away beneath the surface. Being more an icon than a person has stripped him of the right to feel. He fights. He wins. He pulls himself up no matter what he's lost. He's not given credit for that. It's just the least people expect of someone who history and myth have crafted into the immortal soldier. Back straight. Eyes forward. Unwavering. More marble than man. 

'I needed to come back,' he says after a moment, eyes still downcast. 'I thought I'd be happy back there but...'

He doesn't explain where 'back there' is because somehow, he must know that Bucky knows. 

'But...'

Steve sighs. 'I don't think I'm happy anywhere.'

Bucky sits up straight, leans forward, closes one of Steve's hands in his own. He expects him to flinch at the cold of his touch. He doesn't. He doesn't seem to notice it at all, too busy staring at nothing and chewing the skin off his bottom lip. 

'What do you mean?'

Steve looks out over the lake. Bucky looks at Steve. The sun shines through the branches above them, dancing in broken pieces across their skin. In any other lifetime, this moment would have been perfect.

'I never meant to stay. I had every intention of just returning the stones and coming back here like I said I would. It was all going fine until it came to returning the soul stone and then,' he lets out a shuddering sigh. 'Clint warned me before I went. Said I'd come face-to-face with some ugly ghost. I didn't think anything of it when he said but...'

Bucky squeezes Steve's hand and adds ghosts to that list of impossible things that are possible after all.

'Red skull,' Steve spits out the name like it's a piece of broken tooth. 

'What?'

Steve shrugs. 'I didn't believe it myself at first. But he was there. Or at least most of him was. It was like he was stuck in between life and death somehow.'

Bucky tries to imagine it. He sees a hunched over skeleton of a man, skin wrinkled to leather, fingers gnarled like tree branches. Barely alive but somehow unable to die. 

'Apparently, he's been stuck up there since I went under the ice,' Steve continues. 'Punishment for daring to hold an infinity stone or something. Anyway, as much as I hated it, I had to give the stone back. So I asked...'

His breath hitches. Bucky's throat tightens at the sound.

'I asked if I could have Nat back.'

He sounds like a child. The same child Bucky knew way back in a memory. Weak, pale, feverish, forever waxing and waining towards oblivion but never quite fading away. 11 years old. The priest stands by his bed, speaking garbled Latin while Bucky watches his best friend's chest heave for what must be the last time. Sarah clutches at her son's hand, tying their fingers together with a rosary like she's trying to anchor herself to him. He's been close to death many times before, but never this close. He whimpers as the priest carves a cross in the air over his head. Bucky grabs his free hand. Please stay. Please. 

No child should have to be that afraid of losing something.

'He said no. A trade is a trade. Nat made her choice.'

There are tears in his eyes now. Bucky has to fight the urge to look away. Even at his most fragile, Steve likes to keep up appearances. He'd sooner lock himself away than cry in the presence of someone else. Even if that someone else is the one person who knows him inside out.

'I'm sorry,' Bucky says. He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth. They sound flimsy and pathetic.

Steve shakes his head. Gathers himself. Sighs.

'It didn't seem real until then. I got everyone else back. You and Sam. Everyone. But Nat...and Tony,' he covers his face with his hands. 'I'm so sick of losing people, Buck.'

The day Sarah died is as sharp in Bucky's brain as a shard of mirror. He bolted across the neighbourhood as soon as he heard the news. Found Steve sitting on the floor of the tiny apartment he shared with his mother, hands tearing at his scalp as he heaved into the silence. He screamed at Bucky to get out, voice high and wavering like the cry of a wounded fox. Bucky didn't get out. Instead, he knelt down and pulled Steve to him, holding him until he shattered in his arms. He wishes that he could do the same now. Hold him. Let him know that it's safe to break here, because he's ready to pick up the pieces.

He places a hand on Steve's shoulder. Moves closer so that their knees are touching. Feels guilty at the weight of the relief when he doesn't vanish again. 

'I ran. I went back. To the 40s. To Peggy. I thought I'd be safe there. Or at least that things would make sense.'

'How long did you stay?'

Steve looks up. His eyes are dry but his cheeks are flushed. His pupils dart around, looking everywhere but Bucky's face as he counts the days. The weeks. The years, maybe. Bucky's throat is dry. He wonders how much time has once again passed in what feels to him like a matter of seconds. 

'Almost eight months,' Steve says, finally. 'I should have left long before that. I think I told myself that if I just stuck it out a little longer things would slip into place. I thought that I'd be happy eventually. It made sense, y'know? I thought I was going back to a place where I'd fit. But I didn't. I was as out of place there as I am here. I was so stupid.'

'You're not.'

He laughs. It's flat and bitter.

'Do you understand how time travel works, Bucky?'

Bucky shakes his head.

'Neither do I. Not really. I don't know enough to be able to predict just how badly I could have fucked things up by going back there. Bruce talked about alternative timelines and multiverses and God knows what else but however it works I could have messed things up big time.'

'But you didn't.'

'You don't know that.'

Steve gets frustrated with himself too easily. He always has. When they were young, he would get out on bed even on days when he couldn't and then curse his legs when they gave way, like they weren't trying hard enough somehow. Like a demanding parent, he never allows himself any excuses. Now, when his body is strong enough to shift the weight of the world on his shoulders, it's his mind that takes the beating. Despite all the loss, all the pain and everything he's seen, he won't give himself a break. Bucky has sat through enough therapy sessions in his last waking year to know that's a one-way ticket on a train that's bound for a cliff edge. 

'You're allowed to be sad, Steve.'

Steve huffs and dismisses the comment with the wave of a hand.

'Look at me,' Bucky says. When Steve doesn't he reaches out his right hand and touches his cheek, trying to ignore the cadence his own heart is beating against his ribcage. Their relationship has always existed in spaces between. Not quite friends and not quite lovers. Embraces that linger a little longer than they're supposed to. Bodies curled together against cold nights and nightmares. Three kisses. Three moments that Bucky treasures like the marbles he was given for his 10th Birthday. One tucked away behind a rundown bar, drunk on warm beer and the headiness of New York summers. One buried half a mile from the enemy line, soaked in sadness and frozen in the icy air. One hidden amongst the jade grass in Wakanda, glinting in the afternoon sun. They don't discuss them. They don't put a name to what they are to one another for fear of it solidifying into something real enough to be broken. They both know that it's impossible to love on a knife's edge.

Steve places his hand over Bucky's, and for a second it seems like he's going to push him off. He doesn't. He just holds their hands there, eyes falling closed. Bucky runs his thumb over his cheek, feeling the barely-there stubble and the warmth of his skin. He's not sure if he's imagining it when Steve leans into his touch.

'I'm scared,' Steve says. It's a little more than a whisper. It's heartbreaking to see a man of his stature seem so small.

'What of?'

'The future.'

Bucky considers this. 'Me too.'

Neither of them are the type to express their feelings on the surface. They grew up in a time and place where dropping their facade could end with a black eye and swollen lip. They live in bodies that are damn near unbreakable. They've been through so much in what feels like such little time that allowing a single drop of emotion to break free could mean the dam giving way and drowning them as they try desperately try to remember how to swim. 

'I want so badly for the fight to be over,' Steve says. 'But I don't think it ever will be. I feel like I owe the world a debt, somehow, and no matter long I keep fighting it's never going to be paid off. That's why I ran. I thought if I hid away in the past the fight wouldn't be able to find me there. But it did. It was there every time I heard the news on the radio and couldn't do anything about it because it would mean fucking up the timeline more than I already had. It was there in my dreams. I couldn't sleep through the night because of the nightmares. And it felt like I couldn't switch myself off, y'know? Me and Peggy were in a diner and someone dropped a mug and the sound made me jump out of my seat. Not because I was scared but because I was ready to guide everyone in that building to safety and then fight the enemy until one or both of us were dead. I just...don't know if I'm human anymore. I don't know how much of me there is left that hasn't become part of some war or another.'

Bucky understands, perhaps more than anyone else. Being a soldier is one thing but once you've turned into a weapon it's hard to see a way back. Because gun will always be a gun no matter how far it is from the fight. 

They both know what it means to feel like shrapnel; the aftermath of violence that has no meaning outside of its sharp edges.

'You can stop fighting, Steve. That's allowed,' Bucky says, but even he isn't sure of that because no matter how far he runs, he always seems to find himself at the heart of another war. But he wants to believe it. And he wants Steve to believe it perhaps more than anything else.

Steve sniffs and lets go of Bucky's hand. He pushes his thumb and forefinger into his closed eyes in a last-ditch attempt to keep his composure. 

'That's the thing,' He says, his voice thick. 'I don't think I can. So long as I'm standing and healthy and able to, I don't think I can.'

'You don't seem healthy to me.'

'What?'

'No offence, but your head seems pretty fucked.'

Steve lets out a laugh that sounds like a sob. 

'Listen,' Bucky says. 'I know you feel like you owe the world a debt. Or that you still have something you need to prove. But Goddammit, Steve, you've done so much. No one would blame you for walking away now. You don't have to keep going until it kills you. I know you think you do but you don't.'

'I'm not sure I know how to walk away.'

He reaches out and takes both of Steve's hands in his, trying to steady him. 'You can still try.'

'How?' 

'I wish I knew. But I guess it's just a case of taking it one step at a time, y'know? That's what I've been doing since,' he pauses, not wanting to dredge up old memories of being second in command of his own brain. He needs to keep ahold of himself for now. 'It's not easy. But it does work, even if you don't notice it at the time. It's like you're moving so slowly that you don't even realise you're going forward until you look back and see how far you've come. I guess.'

Steve looks up at Bucky, eyes glassy. It breaks Bucky's heart to see him like that but he tries not to react, knowing that Steve would sooner walk barefoot across broken glass than be fussed over. 

'Brave little baby steps,' he mutters, more to himself than to Bucky. 'To try and feel whole again.'

Bucky presses their foreheads together, letting his eyes fall closed as he listens to Steve's breath, feeling it against his cheek. 'That's right. That's all we can do.'

They sit like that for a few minutes, just being, marvelling at the way their hearts still beat after everything. How they're still here after being pulled apart and put back together a dozen times each. And how after all that, they're still together. Not ghosts built out of memories and dreams but flesh and blood and bone. Bucky left miracles behind when he went to war the first time around, but in this moment, he almost believes in them again.

'I missed you,' Steve says. 'It felt like someone had tied a rope around my neck. They kept pulling and pulling and if I hadn't followed I would have hanged. I couldn't breathe.' 

'I'm here now.'

'I know. I love you.'

Bucky jolts back, eyes flying open. His heart jumps up into his throat, damn near choking him. He doesn't know what to think or what to say, because what can he say after hearing what he's longed to hear for so long?

Steve just looks at him. He still looks sad, but there's a slight smile playing on his lips now. 

'Don't say that if you don't mean it,' Bucky says, his tone harsher than he'd intended. 'I swear to God, Steve.'

Steve laughs, his face a little pink. In that moment, despite the years and the heartbreak and everything that's changed, Bucky sees the Steve he's known all his life. The Steve who can go from impossibly serious to awkward and embarrassed at the drop of a hat. The one with little experience in the way of matters of the heart but with so much love to give. The one he'd fallen for when they were both only sixteen.

Maybe they haven't lost themselves entirely.

'I love you,' Steve says again, more certain this time. 'And you know I'm the worst liar.'

Bucky wants to speak, but the words get tangled in his throat, rendering him silent. He takes a breath. And another. And he reaches forward.

When they kiss, it feels like finally knowing the answer to a question they've been asking for years. It's a sudden moment of clarity in which everything feels so simple. It feels like arriving home after years spent wandering aimlessly through the wilderness and finding everything just as they left it.

Suddenly, Steve loses his balance on the uneven ground and they both go tumbling. Their foreheads smack together and everything goes bright for a moment. And they laugh because this whole situation is so them. It's awkward timing and surprise. It's too much but not enough. It's pain and joy. 

It's everything.

'I love you too,' Bucky says when they're still an awkward tangle of limbs on a bed of damp leaves.

'Yeah. I kinda gathered that.'

He rolls off Steve onto the ground. They lie there, staring up at the sun as it winks at them through the branches. Steve grasps Bucky's hand.

'We'll find a way,' he says, and for the first time since he returned from the past, he sounds certain.

'Yeah,' Bucky replies. 'We will.'

And he believes it. It's been a long time since he's allowed himself the luxury of hope. His life has long been a series of dark rooms. He never let himself pull back the curtains for fear that seeing the light would make him long for freedom he could never have. But now all the windows are open and the door has been broken off its hinges. He allows himself that hope because he's finally sure of something.

'I ran a grief support group,' Steve says. 'During those...those five years. It was one of the only things that kept me going, y'know? Helping people like that. I think I could go back to that.'

Bucky smiles to himself. This is what he's always wanted for Steve. To understand that he's not just limited to what his body can and can't do. For him to see that he's a hero because of who he is. And that's who he's always been. Who he always will be. 

'And I've been thinking. I think I'm going to ask Sam to take on Captain America. People need hope, I guess, after all that's happened. I think seeing him would give people hope. He's one of the best men I know. If he wants to take it on, of course.'

Steve isn't always a big talker, but he's rambling, trying to put his whole life together as fast as possible, and Bucky knows him well enough just to let him talk, for now, if it makes him feel like he has things under control. 

'Yeah, I think he would,' Bucky says, squeezing Steve's hand.

'And us...I guess we should find a place. I mean we can't like in motels forever. Maybe we could move back to Brooklyn, but it's changed so much so maybe not. There's always DC. Or we could go somewhere completely new...'

Bucky rolls over onto his side. He turns Steve's face towards him. 

'Don't worry about it,' he says. 'We have time.'

And for the first time in their lives, they do.

So they kiss, knowing that this is the beginning of forever. 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me @ tragicrogers on tumblr.


End file.
